


Mercy

by bexacaust



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Mentions of Kaon, death mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 05:40:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7210250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bexacaust/pseuds/bexacaust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“How could you?!”, she wails at his silent back, and watches his shoulders tense.</p>
<p>“How could you?!”, echoes in this empty room, like a thousand accusations.</p>
<p>“Mercy.”, he answers, a voice like salt, a voice like grave soil in the rain, “Mercy.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mercy

“Mercy?!”, Nickel shrieks, “YOU KILLED YOUR BROTHER IN ARMS; YOU KILLED PART OF OUR FAMILY, FOR MERCY?!”

“Yes.”, he whispers, servos curling into fists so tight his claws dig into his palms, “I killed him out of mercy. I killed him because I know what Overlord’s smile meant. I killed him because Death had marked him with a far crueler target than he deserved.”

Nickel looked at him in helpless anger, in betrayal.

“I killed him because I knew I could make it painless. Because I won’t drag it out for days, weeks on end.”

He turned to Nickel, his eyes damp behind his mask and his voice wavering.

“Do you know what Overlord would have done to him, knowing how much he loved The Pet? Do you know how long he would have suffered by the Phase Sixer’s hands?”

“Tarn, we could’ve protected-”

“No, we couldn’t have.”, he whispered, “We couldn’t have kept him safe, kept him close. Overlord is a virus, he slithers in like lines of bad coding and settles in your processor and haunts you like the ghosts of mistakes long past. I wouldn’t wish him on my worst enemies.”

“You KILLED KAON.”

“I gave him no pain.”, whispered Tarn, “I gave him no pain, he scented no blood, he heard no death knell.”

The massive tank looked at his hands, “His last memory is comfort. His last memory is being held like he always knew. It isn’t whispers like the devil in his audials; its not a thousand days of bleeding.”

Tarn looked at Nickel, and she saw the weakness in him now; she saw the realization that he was not infallible.

“I have bought us time. I have made him question his judgments and I have bought you ALL a little more TIME.”

“All you’ve done is made him target YOU, like you’re some kind of unstable disaster, Tarn!”

“At least by aiming at me, it will give you all a chance to run when the time comes.”, was Tarn’s soft answer.

Nickel looked at him, her spark breaking behind her cestplate as she moved closer, as she let his arms wrap around her and she wept like the Madonna at Christ’s feet. She still choked on the phantom stench of energon and he stroked along her backstrut, gently hushing her tears.

“Oh Tarn, don’t you know the-”

“The road to Hell is paved in good intentions, yes.”

“Then WHY?”

“If the road to hell is paved as such, what do you think the stairway to Heaven is made of?”, he answered with a wry chuckle, “If damning myself will keep the rest of you safe, then its worth covering my hands in blood for.”

Nickle clung to him, murmuring her pleas to a God who stopped listening a hundred lifetimes ago.

And like Peter, crucified yet forever unworthy, Tarn hushed her and held her close to a powerful spark and stared into the dusk; knowing that the bells had begun to toll for him.

He shuttered his optics, and mourned in silence like old churches in war zones.


End file.
